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Patagonia produces high-quality environmentally friendly garments that command significant price premiums. Its environmental mission motivates it not only to donate to environmental causes and reduce the impact of its own production, but also to share its practices with other companies. While pursuing its strong environmental stance, Patagonia maintains a larger gross profit margin than its competitors and is targeting a 10% rate of annual growth in sales. In spring 2010, Patagonia was in the process of implementing a new, radical environmental initiative called "Product Lifecycle Initiative" (PLI). This initiative represented a holistic commitment to lengthen the lifecycle of each product and reduce landfill waste. It constituted Patagonia's efforts to take responsibility for the products it made, "from birth to death and then beyond death, back to rebirth." The initiative consisted of a mutual contract between the company and its customers to "reduce, repair, reuse, and recycle" the apparel that they consumed.

learning objective:

This case invites students to understand a unique type of business model, assess its sustainability, and evaluate innovative ways to compete.

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Core Curriculum in Strategy is a series of Readings that cover fundamental course material in Strategy. "Setting Aspirations-Mission, Vision, and Values" introduces students to the concepts of organizational aspirations and the link to strategy. The Reading presents a framework for analyzing aspirations, discusses the differences between mission and vision, and uses industry examples to explore how mission and vision form a firm's strategy. It also addresses general misconceptions about organizational aspirations.

This Reading includes 7 videos featuring industry executives discussing a variety of topics: Medtronic's Enduring Mission, Visions Guide Strategy, PepsiCo: Performance with Purpose, Walking the Talk, A Shared Sense of Mission Part 1, A Shared Sense of Mission Part 2, and Aspirations and Economic Interests.

learning objective:

To introduce and provide a framework for analyzing organizational aspirations, mission, and vision.

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Patagonia produces high-quality environmentally friendly garments that command significant price premiums. In Spring 2010, Patagonia rolled out a new, radical environmental initiative called "Product Lifecycle Initiative" (PLI), which was committed to lengthening the lifecycle of each product and reducing landfill waste. This case provides an update on Patagonia's PLI as well as on other company environmental and social commitments.

learning objective:

To engage students in discussion over private/market provision of public goods and questions related to product scope.

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Core Curriculum in Strategy is a series of Readings that cover fundamental course material in Strategy. Readings include Interactive Illustrations which help students master complex concepts quickly. "Industry Analysis" is intended to familiarize students and executives with the core concepts in industry analysis. Students learn why the Porter forces framework is a valuable tool for understanding industry structure and how to perform one. This Reading will also address criticisms and limitations of the framework.

This Reading includes two Interactive Illustrations: Porter's Forces Framework and Link between Economic Profit of U.S. Industry Groups and Porter's Forces Framework.

learning objective:

1. Show how industry analysis is critical to a firm's strategy 2. Explain how to perform industry analysis using a powerful framework 3. Explore the different applications of industry analysis 4. Address the criticisms and limitations

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Core Curriculum in Strategy is a series of Readings that cover fundamental course material in Strategy. Readings include Interactive Illustrations which help students master complex concepts quickly. "Introduction to Strategy" provides a comprehensive overview of the strategy discipline and introduces the building blocks of strategy by providing overviews of fundamental conceptual frameworks. Students will learn how firms decide where to compete by exploring the business landscape and the structural forces that shape competition. This Reading will also present alternative perspectives on strategy.

This Reading includes five Interactive Illustrations: Porter's Forces Framework, Link between Economic Profit of U.S. Industry Groups and Porter's Forces Framework, Types of Competitive Advantage within a Specific Segment, Positioning within a Three-Dimensional Business Landscape, and Southwest Airlines' Business Model.

learning objective:

1. Define strategy and introduce the core concepts of competitive strategy. 2. Explore how the business environment and structural forces affect profitability. 3. Explain the importance of consistency in relation to a firm's internal model and external positioning. 4. Discuss the factors that affect profitability over time.

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The business of surrogacy, a boutique practice with client costs upwards of $100,000, allowed couples and individuals from a variety of backgrounds, ages, and sexual orientations to build families. This case examines Circle Surrogacy (CS), one of the premier surrogacy agencies in the world, as its president and founder, John Weltman, was about to share an executive presentation with his core management team where he would recommend an option to outsource its surrogacy services. While the changing cultural and regulatory environment had made surrogacy possible for more people, it remained cost-prohibitive for the majority of its eligible audience. Weltman's proposal, if enacted, would create a new opportunity for CS, increasingly faced with competition from other agencies, to offer lower cost surrogacies to intended parents. However, the launch of an outsourced surrogacy service would threaten the company's core value proposition and challenge its prevailing high-touch, premium strategy. How should Weltman and CS best proceed?

learning objective:

The case offers the opportunity to examine how to build and sustain competitive advantage in a non-computer-based platform business. It allows the analysis of a niche industry that is culturally, politically, and technologically cutting-edge.

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By providing free and open-access online courses at a large scale, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms seek to innovate the business models of the traditional higher education industry. In a little over a year, Coursera had grown at a rapid rate to emerge as a leader of the MOOCs in terms of the number of student enrollments, courses, and partners. The case examines two aspects of these developments in the industry : (1) What choices did Coursera make that enabled it to grow so quickly? (2) In what ways did Coursera's success impact the success of is competitors, Udacity and edX? Would one player naturally come to dominate the industry, and if so, what choices should Coursera make to retain its market positioning?

learning objective:

This case has been designed to be taught in the RC Strategy course. It introduces criteria by which business models can be assessed and allows a discussion of competitive interaction between players with different business models (Coursera vs. Udacity vs. edX). The case illustrates the impact that reinforcing choices can have on the success of business model innovation.

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This case has been designed to explore strategic interactions among organizations with different business models. The case considers how a competitor successfully challenged the incumbent in a platform market defined by strong network effects and high switching costs. The case allows students to assess the advantages and disadvantages of eBay's platform business model in comparison to Amazon's retail business model; to evaluate business model performance when value loops of two industry players interact; to analyze how Amazon expanded its business model and overcame barriers to entry in a platform market that generates winner-take-all effects for first movers; discuss how eBay can respond to the new competitive dynamic, exploring both tactical and strategic interactions; and assess the strategic implications of eBay's 2011 acquisition of GSI Commerce.

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